I spent four days last week trying to get my online backup file restored for Quickbooks, our accounting software.

One morning, we woke up and found our entire QB file corrupted. I would insert cautions to QB users about such occurrences, but I think everyone already knows the problem. Such a warning would be like reminding a New York resident about street crime. We QB users always feel like we are walking on eggshells with QB, ready at any moment for everything to go haywire. We live with it, because the program is useful and ubiquitous.

So I perform a backup every day, but recently started using the QB online backup facility. This automatically backs up the file every day. I still make a local backup from time to time, but I have gotten lazy. When things went south the other day, my online backup was 10 days old, an eternity in our business. I sent QB our file to try to execute a repair, but in the mean time I went to the restore command to restore the most recent online backup before the corruption.

Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. After four tries, each 3 hours each, I got the idea maybe it was not going to work. So I called QB and got their Phillipines tech support desk. They walked me through some steps. Fail. Fail. Fail.

Through all this time, we were entirely shut down accounting-wise. Finally, in exasperation, I asked them to just post my backup file on an FTP server somewhere. After all, we could both see the file exists, and it was just the QB proprietary file transfer protocol that was failing to restore it. Well, three countries and four departments later, no one could post the file on an FTP server. Or to my Amazon S3 account. Or to a password-protected web page.

For God sakes, this is a software company? Finally, they agreed to have someone at the third party contractor who runs the servers try to put the file on a DVD and mail it to me, LOL.

I tell you, sometimes that site is totally dialed into my brain. (by the way, as I blog, a signed version of this comic on the wall behind my monitor).

PS- eventually the Quickbooks people rebuilt my corrupted file before I could ever get the backup in my hands. Object lesson here - don't ever give up on the original file, the Intuit guys have twice in my life fixed a file that seemed corrupted beyond all hope of recovery.

I will pat myself on the back and say that I called it, way back in week 4 of the preseason and again after week 1: The Cards, as usual, suck. The only reason that this is news is that some national sportscasters were drinking the kool-aid and had predicted that this will be a turnaround year for the Cards. One quarter of watching the Cards get manhandled by Denver's second team in pre-season convinced me that while the Cards had some interesting skill position players, they had no Offensive or Defensive line. And now, their top player on each line has gone down with an injury.

This is a team that has never given a crap about its lines, as illustrated by the brilliant trade a couple of years ago of the draft rights to Terrell Suggs (despite his being a hometown ASU hero), perhaps the best young DL in the game, for two mediocre receivers. Here is Coyote's draft rule number one: Teams like the Cards that draft receivers in the first round several years in a row are going to suck (hear that, Detroit?)

I said previously this is maybe a 5 win team. Did I overestimate? It looks like the Cards have a shot at the Matt Leinert sweepstakes, otherwise known as the first draft choice. Of course, the Cards being the Cards, they will probably pull out some last second win in the last second of the game to drop out of the first pick, like they did two years ago against the Vikings. If they do get the first pick, they should trade the pick for linemen or more picks to draft lineman. Here's why:

There is no point in having a good QB and a bad O-line (see Houston Texans in their first year)

I enjoy many professional sports casually, attending an event or two every year, but the NFL is by far my favorite. In the pre-season, there was a lot of hype that maybe the long-time hapless Cardinals would be decent this year. I knew better, even from the pre-season. Heck, my 8-year-old daughter knew better.

We went to see the last pre-season game against Denver. In that game, the Arizona starters played for quite a while against the Denver 2nd team, and got beaten up. Specifically, they could not run the ball and in turn their defense could not stop the run. So it was no surprise to see them get blasted in their first regular season game against the Giants.

The problem with the Cards is this: They have spent the last several years drafting high-profile position players, including spending a jillion 1st round picks on receivers. Great teams got that way because they invested in their lines - both O and D, even when such picks might be less popular with the fans on draft day. The Cards have instead focused on drafting "names" who might help sell season tickets in the new stadium. This neglect is very apparent today. It doesn't matter how good your position players are if there are no holes for the backs and the QB is getting plowed to the turf on every play. This is a 5-11 team that is fortunately playing in the NFL's worst division, so they may eek out 7 wins. You heard it here first.

By the way, if you are an avid football fan, I recommend two sites to you. The first is Football Outsiders, who have taken a Bill-James-like approach to football stats, rethinking metrics to provide a better insight into what teams really are good. Make sure to check out their DVOA rankings - basically they compare every teams performance on every play against other teams in the same situation (e.g. 3rd and 8 on their own 45). The other site is Greg Easterbrook's always entertaining Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, providing large doses of football clear thinking and haiku.

I don't want to be too much of a Monday morning QB, but this sure is a missed opportunity:

The city declared a mandatory evacuation. Why then did it stick tens of thousands in the Superdome, right in the middle of town, rather than evacuate them with the assets they already owned in quantity?

Some critics are calling it a racist plot. If we rely on Coyote's Law, the most likely answer is incompetence and stupidity.

Update:Junk Yard Blog has extensive reports on unused busses, including more sattelite imagery, local evac plans, reports from locals, etc. Just keep scrolling down the page